3. I Am Cuba (1964)

Director: Mikhail KalatozovYear: 1964Scene: Pool sceneLength: 3:20

A propaganda film made through a co-production agreement between post-revolutionary Cuba and their comrades in Russia, I Am Cuba is a dazzling piece of historical cinema. It captures a nation’s ideology through its survey of Cuban life while challenging the limits of cinema with towering crane shots that ease from the ground to rooftops, through windows and balconies. This is a 1964 film that predates the Steadicam, so the technological achievement is awe-inspiring.

The most famous shot involves a camera weaving through a glitzy rooftop party and then scaling down several stories as if on Spiderman’s back to a lower rooftop. There it follows a lady into a pool, dipping in and out of the water to capture the action. In order to keep water droplets off the lens as the camera bobbed in and out of the pool, director Mikhail Kalatozov reportedly brought in a submarine periscope cleaner.

Paul Thomas Anderson pays homage to I Am Cuba’s tracking shot with the pool party scene in Boogie Nights. We don’t think he had any Soviet submarine parts though.